206

CHAPTER XII. ”
Expenditure.

Some indication of the standard should be obtainable by a
different approach, namely from that of the relative expenditure on
various items and particularly necessities. Here again the material
is very defective. In a number of the enquiries that have been
made, workers whose families were away in the villages have been grouped
 with workers whose families were with them in the towns, and few enquiries
 have given particulars of the absent dependents and of the remittances
 to them. There are, however, two investigations which are
valuable in this connection, namely those made into family budgets in
Sholapur and Ahmedabad by the Bombay Labour Office in 1925 and 1926.
These relate to groups of families whose absent dependents formed a
negligible fraction of the whole. In the Sholapur enquiry, the average
number in the family was 4-68 persons and of this +11 persons were
absent dependents, while 4-57 persons lived in the family. In the Ahmedabad
 enquiry, the corresponding figures are 4-00, +13 and 3-87. We
append particulars of the expenditure on different items.

[tems.

“ood—
Cereals .. wo
Pulses ro -
Sugar and sweet meats
Meat .e oe
Milk and ght ve
Vegetables and fruit
Oils ‘i “i
Salt ve .
Condiments ot
Tea "se 4
Other Food items

»
.
E
.

Total Food

Fuel and lighting is .
Clothing Pe ow oe
Bedding and household necessities
House rent .. . £
Hair-cutting, washerman and soap
Tobacco aie an +3
Liquor - ..
Travelling to and from native place
Interest on debts aw oe
Miscellaneous .. .e 4a
Total .

Sholapur.

Average
monthly
expenditure.


Percent.
age
tn total

[:
5
I 1
110 |
1 4 ¢
015 2
1 0:
0 3 r
IL 4 f
J 01
0 B 5

Se
0

25-00
3:50
2-80
4-31
3-41
2-50
2-85
0:61
3-43
0-15
0:80

18 10 B

40.95

3 Iv 2
4 710
0 6 1
2 8 (
0 12 1¢
0 9 ¢
013 ¢

9-60
11-86
1-00
6-27
2:12
1:60
2:27
1-73
$5.65
1-65

- 7

00-00

Ahmedabad,

Average
monthly
sxpenditure.


Percentage

to total.

Rs. A.
11 11 11
1 7 ¢
015 %
014 1
3 6 1
111 1}
011 1(
0 1°
011 ¢
0 2 ¢
0 14 10

20-84
3:73
2-47
2-24
8-59
4-30
1-88
0-25
1-87
0-37
2.98

292 12 %

57-90

212 «¢
311 ¢
0 7 ¢
4 91]
015 *
1 2 ¢
0 8 °

7-04
9-45
1-16
11-74
2:50
2:97
1-39
1-50

4-35
100-00

an

Unfortunately, the statistics are not exactly comparable, for
in Ahmedabad. where the workers are stated to be heavily indebted,